1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing fibre-reinforced plastic articles by deforming a planar prepreg containing fibres impregnated by curable resins. It also relates to a prepreg for the manufacture of fibre-reinforced plastic articles by deformation thereof. It relates further to fibre-reinforced plastic articles containing fibres impregnated by a cured resin.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Prepregs consisting of fibre mats which are impregnated by curable resins have commonly been treated by a pressing thereof in heated molds. Such method has, however, numerous drawbacks. A first drawback is that due to the necessary exact corresponding shapes of the upper and the lower mold or die, respectively, such molds are extremely expensive. Furthermore, a minimal thickness of the space between the two mold parts and accordingly the thickness of the therewith manufactured articles cannot be chosen arbitrarily small, there is a lower limit thereof because otherwise the flow of the reinforced material would be detrimentally affected. For this reason, for instance, a saving on weight in the manufacture of parts of vehicles made from fibre-reinforced plastic articles could not be realized completely and the application of such parts has been restricted to thick walled parts.